EU leaders face make-or-break summit decision on Turkey
Next week’s summit of European Union leaders faces an important choice on Turkey. Should the EU toughen existing measures that are holding up Turkey’s EU accession talks, because of Ankara’s refusal...
View ArticleCameron’s Challenge: Offer Something Positive for Europe
Seen from continental Europe, one of the biggest questions of 2010 concerns David Cameron, leader of the UK’s opposition Conservative party. The Tories are widely expected to win the forthcoming...
View ArticleVan Rompuy Makes His Subtle Mark on EU Working Practices
Herman Van Rompuy, the European Union’s first full-time president, is getting down to business. Hitting the ground running? Not exactly. But in various subtle ways the mild-mannered, philosophically...
View ArticleJournalist’s Murder: Bulgaria Must Put Its House In Order
Tuesday’s murder of Bobi Tsankov, a young Bulgarian journalist who wrote about his country’s over-mighty gangsters, took place in broad daylight in a crowded street in the centre of Sofia. As a...
View ArticleEU possesses the legal power to rescue Greece if necessary
There is a need to clear up some misconceptions about how Greece, or some other fiscal miscreant in the 16-nation eurozone, would be rescued by its partners in the event that it was unable to refinance...
View ArticleTymoshenko’s defiance risks losing her friends in Europe
Yulia Tymoshenko’s refusal to acknowledge Viktor Yanukovich as the legitimate winner of Ukraine’s presidential election is starting to embarrass her friends in the European Union. The White House,...
View ArticleEvery step you take, David, EU will be watching you
As you’d expect, European Union leaders were quick to congratulate David Cameron on his appointment as British prime minister. But for all the warm words, they will be watching his first moves on the...
View Article“Nul points” from Germany for Greece in Eurovision song contest?
Apart from wars and economic slumps, nothing divides Europeans as much as the Eurovision Song Contest. This annual televised orgy of glitzy musical mediocrity is now in its 55th year. Good God, it is...
View ArticleEU keeps economic targets firmly in its sights
The European Union is nothing if not addicted to targets. Promises to achieve particular goals by specific dates are part and parcel of the EU’s daily business. Sometimes the objectives are met,...
View ArticleAnother nail in Nabucco’s coffin?
The European commission, the European Union’s executive arm, has been one of the staunchest supporters of the proposed Nabucco pipeline, a 3,900-kilometer behemoth that would carry natural gas from the...
View ArticleEU enlargement falls victim to Slovenia-Croatia talks breakdown
So exciting are European Union summits that they sometimes distract attention from developments that, though perhaps less eye-catching, tell you a lot more about what’s going on in the EU. For...
View ArticleBrussels 2009 – the same as London 1641 or Versailles 1789?
Is José Manuel Barroso’s reappointment as European Commission president in trouble? Probably not. But the jury is still out on whether he will secure formal approval from the European Parliament as...
View ArticleTurkey’s EU membership bid crawls a tiny step forward
Next Tuesday, Turkey’s bid to join the European Union will creep forward one more inch. The EU and Turkey will open formal talks on taxation, one of the 35 “chapters”, or policy areas, that a...
View ArticleSpanish-Belgian squabble puts EU foreign policy in a poor light
The last time that a dispute between Madrid and Brussels seized the international spotlight was in 1568 – and boy, was it big. That was when the Spanish rulers of the Low Countries sparked the...
View ArticleMcCreevy feeds a junkie’s Lisbon treaty habit
I was in Stockholm this morning when the happy news arrived that Germany’s constitutional court had given the green light in principle to the European Union’s Lisbon treaty. I call the news “happy”...
View ArticlePlain-speaking Sarkozy tells Israel: Dump Lieberman
Say what you like about Nicolas Sarkozy, he certainly knows how to capture your attention. At a meeting in the Elysée Palace last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it appears that...
View ArticleSwallowing snakes for the good of Europe
The great thing about blogging is that you learn something new almost every day. This morning, while preparing a blog on the European Union’s foreign policy, I have learnt the French expression avaler...
View ArticleEurope too suspicious of China’s climate change policies
According to an opinion poll, more than half of Denmark’s population has little or no confidence that world leaders will strike an agreement on fighting climate change at December’s landmark United...
View ArticleShould we blame Eton for Conservative party’s hostility to EU?
Every now and then, I’m asked in Brussels whether the opposition British Conservative party’s hostility to the European Union is related to the fact that so many of its top people – including David...
View ArticleSarkozy’s lecture to the Visegrad Four will fall on deaf ears
There are all sorts of threats to the European Union’s unity, but something tells me that the biggest threat isn’t the Visegrad group. This appears to be a view not shared by President Nicolas Sarkozy...
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